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Longtime MLB coach and former Brewers manager will serve as the Red Sox’s interim manager for the 2020 season, as the club announced Tuesday:
Congrats to Interim Manager Ron Roenicke! pic.twitter.com/W8I89GRDdw
— Red Sox (@RedSox) February 11, 2020
The team will provide more details on the move at a 4:30 p.m. ET press conference on Tuesday. The decision to elevate Roenicke, who had served as Alex Cora’s bench coach in Boston for the last two seasons, puts at least a temporary end to a bizarre one-month stretch for the Red Sox. With MLB already investigating a Red Sox sign-stealing scandal that allegedly took place in 2018 — Cora’s first season in Boston — the team parted ways with the manager on January 14 after MLB’s report on the Astros’ sign stealing identified him as one of the primary ringleaders in the illegal operation. While the results of the Astros investigation also cost Houston manager A.J. Hinch and new Mets skipper Carlos Beltrán their jobs, the Astros and Mets quickly hired replacements — Dusty Baker in Houston, Luis Rojas in New York — while new Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom took his sweet time identifying a successor to Cora.
With this move, Bloom is essentially putting the decision on hold until he has a whole offseason to interview a variety of candidates and then hire a staff who shares a common vision with the new manager. With that said, there’s now going to be somewhat of a feeling of normalcy with Roenicke set to lead the team through the entire 2020 season. Even if he’s not the person Bloom has in mind to fill the job on a long-term basis — and that seems rather clear considering that they’re not giving him the full-time manager title even though he’s set to fill the job for an entire season — this gives the 63-year-old Roenicke a chance to make himself a more prominent candidate for managerial openings around the league.
Roenicke, who managed the Brewers from 2011-15, had a 342-331 record over four-plus seasons in Milwaukee and finished over .500 in three of his four full campaigns. He took them to the NLCS and finished second in NL Manager of the Year voting in 2011.